Back from GHC, and my brain is full

That's the best way to describe how I feel right now: it was a whirlwind trip to GHC (did it seem to anyone else like the schedule was just CRAMMED FULL this year?), and I'm mentally and physically exhausted. I'm sure I'll have more posts in subsequent days about more specific stuff that came out of the conference (including some thoughts on a question posed by this person), but for now, here are my quick summary thoughts on the conference.

• The blogger meetup did in fact happen (even though apparently lots of people decided to wear brown skirts and mill around the appointed meeting spot at the meeting time!), and I had a lovely time chatting with sciencegirl and wicked teacher of the west. Definitely one of the highlights of the week! (Secret message to both: sorry I made you miss out on the session!)
• Keynotes: Mary Lou Jepson is teh awesome---I thought her speech rocked. Fran Allen seems like the type of person who would be great to take to lunch, but I was a bit disappointed with her speech. She brought up all these great nuggets, but then didn't pursue them, maddeningly. (I'm wondering if the taking-away-of-her-computer before hitting the stage threw her off a bit? I've never seen her speak, so I don't know if they keynote was typical style for her or not.) That said, how awesome was it to be in the presence of a Turing winner?
• Altitude sickness sucks. I didn't feel "normal" until Friday. That said, Keystone is gorgeous.
• This was Baby Jane's third conference with me, and this was the only conference at which I didn't feel like I had to hide the fact that I had brought my family with me. In fact, Baby Jane and Mr. Jane stopped by during one of the breaks, and I saw other babies and small children hanging around the conference center, too. I really wish more conferences had this vibe.
• I met quite a few grad students, and I think I talked with at least 90% of them on the whole balancing-kids-and-academia thing.
• I now have a long list of speakers that I'd like to invite to my campus. More names to add to my Super-Secret List of Fabulous Women Computer Scientists, which I like to bring out when discussions about invited speakers come up and my colleagues can only seem to come up with names of male computer scientists.
• My one major disappointment was that I didn't meet a lot of other junior faculty---not as many as in previous years. And I seem to be meeting fewer junior (and senior) faculty who are the only woman in the department---I didn't meet a single other person like that this year. On the one hand, that's great for them; on the other hand, it makes me feel even more isolated than I already feel.
• This conference was a wake-up call for me in a bunch of ways. I'll have more to say on this, but frankly, I'm still trying to process it all and figure out what to do with it. I will give a bit of a hint: I think it's time for me to be a lot more fearless.

And now, to tackle the daunting task of catching up after 3 days away...ugh!