Conference Surprises

Our conference has started out terrifically, everyone is into the topic being presented by Dr. Martin and everyone seems to be taking away a tremendous amount from it.

I received a big surprise at from one of the doctors at the conference this weekend. Dr. Paul Grussenmeyer, also a talented carver, brought a number of his carvings to share and let me pick one out. I picked out this beautiful necklace it is a morphed butterfly carved in black pearl with black onyx eyes, hanging from a stainless steel cable necklace.

Glancing around at some of the other pieces that he brought I found this beautiful pearl carving of a butterfly on a Greek leather cord. Not in the picture are the carved leaf ends on the cord. Well, of course, I couldn't pass this one up.

You can check out some of his non-jewelry carvings on his website PGCarvings.com.

I'm looking forward to spending some non-conference time with a group of the doctors and their wives. We are going to have some fun later on. What a great group!


The evening turned out wonderfully. A group of nine of us had dinner in the hotel resturant. Lots of laughter and fun. While waiting for the entree to arrive, I noticed a Civil War reenactor in the bar area, not wanting to miss the opportunity for a picture I immediately headed in to get a photo and ask him to come out and visit with the "Yankees" that I was dining with.

It turned out that he was Robert E. Lee (aka Bob Moates). He was so gracious to come out and speak with the group. He was so amazing, completely in 'character'. It made for a great end to a fantastic evening.