Getting a Little Quality Time with @AbuBility at #NCTEAR19 in Birmingham, Alabama - Doing the Math...11 Years Going

 He's teaching and working at Syracuse Academy of Teaching. I'm pretending to be a teacher (an researcher) at Fairfield University. He's been with m every step of the way the last 11 years and continues to work with CWP-Fairfield during our Young Adult Literacy Labs and summer teacher institutes.

Phew. It flies by.

On Saturday, he'll present with me on some of the work we've accomplished and I couldn't be prouder. Family. Friendship. Mentorship. Guidance. Studies. Life. Journeys. The Great Whatever.

Yesterday, when we arrived early to the conference we walked around Birmingham where Abu finally received his official Beautification Board Honor Roll designation. It's been long in the coming.

This morning, we're heading out to Montgomery, Alabama where we'll be visiting high schools and touring the new civil rights museum there.

Last night, we simply crashed at the hotel after walking the streets of Birmingham looking for something to do. We're wondering if there's a southern version of the Rust Belt - as he said, "this is another variation of Syracuse."

We're looking forward to meeting up with others on the trip today and especially for presenting on Saturday afternoon to the 150 people in attendance (at least a slice of them).

Here's the real kicker, though. The hotel has NO INTERNET service. ATT is trying to get on it, but the whole thing has malfunctioned (including the credit card payments for incidentals). The line is out the door. Well, we love our technology, but when it fails, it fails. Sucks to be us. I'm using a hotspot to get service. It's pretty shady.