One thing leads to another

It is the end of my fall Conference season for this year.  Next year Conference season runs into mid November with a session in Huntington Beach, California.  At times I like attending, I try to attend at least one a year that I am not speaking at, most of the time I go to speak, and hang around and hear other speakers.

People sometimes ask how I get to travel so much.  A big part of it is speaking at conferences.  My first job out of law school the first year the office sent me to a couple of conferences, one in DC and one in New Orleans. Other than being told I was going, not asked, and being sent to New Orleans on like 3 days notice, I very much enjoyed the experience and learned from it.  The following year I asked about going to a couple of conferences and was told only one.  I complained that my colleague Dennis had been to three and I was told that he was speaking at them. I rapidly figured out that if I was on the agenda as a speaker, the office would fund the travel.  I like to travel and I am not afraid of public speaking (part of my weird brain - I am not afraid of talking to a large crowd.)  So I started submitting proposals to speak at conferences.  When the proposals were accepted I had to develop materials, and write articles.  The conference presentations and articles got me noticed and I picked up a consulting contract to do training.  That got me noticed and a couple of articles got published.  That led to me being noticed when this job came open, and this job came with a travel budget.  One thing led to another, to another.  Now my general travel budget was cut this year, but I just discovered that another little project I am managing has a $9,000 travel budget in it that no one has any plans for.  I need a couple of Medical conferences in April, May, or June of next year.