It's been about half a year since I posted anything here, and I've realized that people still make their way here occasionally.  So, a brief explanation of what's going on.
The NEXT DAY after I tried to start orgazing the conference, I received notice that I probably would not be getting into grad school.  So, that took a lot of energy up, and in the end I did not get into grad school.  Which, as you might imagine, derailed me somewhat.
So, in the meantime, I've been finding my own way to develop a foundation for doing the things I want to do, including being able to pay for them.  Sad but true.  But things are pretty well on track for me, and I'm ramping up for another round of applications.  Even if that doesn't work out, things are sufficiently stable that I'll try to return to work on the whole conference thing.  Stay tuned!  Or even better, point your RSS aggregator at: http://ecult.org/powwow/self_improvement/rss.  (I know, you have no idea what I'm talking about.)