Columbus, Ohio Celiac Conference - I'll be there.

The Columbus Children's Hospital has hosted an annual Celiac Conference for 19 years now (including this year) here in Ohio. It is on Saturday, November 4th, 2006 this year (8a-4:30p in the Room Stecker Auditorium on the Main Campus), and I plan to attend. This will be my first time at the event, and I hope it lives up to my expectations. In talking to the reservations person at the hospital, it sounds like there will be in excess of 500 persons from all around the area and even country-wide.

My only "glitch" so far was that I registered (by phone) back a few weeks ago only to not receive any confirmation as promised. I had to re-register yesterday, since when I called I was informed that they had some "computer issues" and such that caused havoc this year. Lovely. The lady I spoke to thought they caught all the problems, but alas, my registration was one of those that was not corrected when the fixed whatever went awry with their database. So, now my confirmation should be here by Friday (better be!)

The event includes lunch (Gluten Free of course), and is $35/person (for late-signups, which I guess I was). The outline of events:

• Research Update with Ivor D. Hill, MD
• Medication Update with Steve Plogsted, PharmD
• The Frugal Gourmet with Mary Kay Sharrett, MS,RD,LD, CNSD
• Immunology 101 with Wallace Crandall, MD
• Eating Out with Celiac Disease with Robert LaFrance
• Special track for teens
• Special track for youth ages 7-11

So, it should be interesting. There is also a Whole Foods in Columbus I hope to find, and a store a few have mentioned on the forums called "Raisin Rack" that caters to gluten free diets. Quite a few vendors will be there too from what I understand, and had it not been for the fact I will not have enough books in my possession in time to exhibit, I would have setup a booth to sell our new gluten free desserts book there. So, next year for that I'm thinking.

One thing the hospital needs to work on before next year is their web-registration. The only thing that made me ever sign up by phone to begin with was the fact their website has this ridiculous limitation of only being able to sign up one person at a time (lame -- since, many attendees will certainly bring spouses, friends, children). I expressed my disapproval, and supposedly they are going to try to improve the web registration experience.

Hope to see some of my gluten free comrades there! A few have already told me to look for them (well, to phone them once there since I do not even know what they look like in some cases). Should be interesting. And, I think people will have an easy time finding my wife and I if all goes as planned (I need to finish putting our company name on the shirts we bought, but once done, that should make it easy).