The annual Tcl conference, Tcl’2006, is going to be held in Naperville, IL, this year, during the week of October 9-11. At a bare minimum, if I only go for the technical sessions, the registration is $395 (with the $100 early-bird discount that ends October 1st) and covers October 11-13. Airfare from Newark (EWR) to O’Hare (ORD) on Continental, according to Travelocity.com, would be $173.60 round-trip, if I fly out the evening of October 10th and return the evening of October 13th (Flights 1193/1174). Hotel rooms at $99/night for those 3 nights will run me $297 plus taxes.
Not including meals and other incidental expenses (transportation to and from the airport, etc.), we’re talking close to $900 to attend. That’s a lot of money to be spending out of my own pocket. Given the attendees and speakers, it’d be worth it, but on top of existing expenses, it’ll be hard to come up with the money.
I guess I have a few weeks to try and scare up some consulting work to pay for it.
Tags:
Tcl,
conference
Programmer, husband, father, singer, guitarist, tinkerer, reverse engineer, strange, and living in New Jersey. 
Like I have been telling you ad nauseum – My group gift (Yes its a plug) is the way to go here. Define a gift in this case for yourself and distribute invitations for friends, family and colleagues to contribute. Why work for it if you can get people to pay your way spread out so that no one feels unduly impressed upon. Conceivably you could setup a “Group Gift” for your birthday and/or Christmas and get one good thing instead of 10 lame things.
Uhm can *your employer* pay?? :/
Julio: That presumes I know enough people–hell, any people–who would give me free money.
Holly: Honestly, I haven’t asked, but given that it’s a Tcl conference and not some whiz-bang Web 2.OHMYGOD circle-jerk, the odds of getting the money to go is slim.