Sunday’s theme was “crashing”
January 24th, 2006 by Beth GallawaySunday morning I crashed the OCLC breakfast, mostly to meet my friend from NC. Per usual, I was running late and only caught the last fifteen minutes, and then sat in on the roundtable discussion at the general table. The conversation was veering towards 24/7 so I excused myself before I said something bad, and sat in the lobby with my colleagues, chatting about gaming and eating fruit and a croissant. I was very proud that I convinced a buddy to join YALSA just to be part of the gaming interest group.
I went back to my hotel room, tried to write a bit, and … crashed. I was out sort of late the night before and hadn’t gotten enough sleep. I woke up refreshed, midafternoon and wandered over to La Villita for a late lunch and some souvenir shopping.
I got a Philly steak and cheese that would have made a Pennsylvanian shudder. It wasn’t uneatable, but my husband makes it with pineapple teriyaki marinated black Angus, shredded mozzarella, mushrooms, onions and peppers, so steakums and American cheese didn’t quite cut it.
I found baskets and pottery and beads and bells and clever shot glasses for friends and family before trotting off to the Conference Center to finish my tour of the exhibit halls. I never did find the division booths (where were they???). I also couldn’t find two vendors that I wanted to hit up for freebies for a program Metrowest is putting on next week on anime, manga & graphic novels.
Back to the hotel (I’ve never stayed so close to the conference center, or in such a swank place, for that matter) to drop everything off and take a quick shower before heading off to the OCLC red suite. The blue cheese and mushroom canapes were the best, and I had a great time mingling with bloggers, vendors, publishers, library school students, and other friends old & new. I didn’t RSVP for the Blog Salon either. Bad librarian!
I somehow got myself invited to dinner with a group of folks discussing libraries building community - it was sort of a focus group for the two in our party who are putting together a book. The people were from varied backgrounds and locations, and I ended up having something to say on the topic (gaming is, after all, a social event). We went to Boudro’s - I had herb-cured salmon tacos (looked like cream cheese & lox) that were REALLY good.
Then, we decided we’d crash the ASLCA party for dessert, but it was about 11:15 by the time we got there and all that was left were a handful of raspberry pastries and coffee. I ran into some MA librarians and latched onto them and we went to Medusa for late night cocktails.
We got in late and then my roommate and I talked until all hours, finally crashing around 2. I woke up at 6:30 to a blinking orange light. My first thought was that the room was on fire. It turned out my laptop’s battery was dying, so it was flashing a warning - even my computer was crashing! I managed to get back to sleep for a few more hours.
I didn’t attend any meetings Sunday (I really didn’t have any committments), but the connections made and ideas exchanged were great - sometimes, that’s the best part of the conference.
Tags: ALAMidwinter2006, conferences
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