I’m killing a little time before the opening keynote address at Computers in Libraries. Got settled in yesterday. I did catch the Lincoln exhibit at the Smithsonian but didn’t do much else. The long day of travel wore me out more than I had realized until I actually contemplated more walking. So I settled for dinner and relaxing at the hotel for a few hours. I did notice that the National Mall looks like hell; the grass is in serious need of help. No doubt the usual effect of winter combined with the tramping of a gazillion feet during the President’s inauguration less than two months ago.
Listened to the Decemberists new album, The Hazards of Love, yesterday on the plane. I pre-ordered it from Amazon in the hopes that I would get it on the release day (last Tuesday). It still hadn’t arrived on Friday; that’s the last time I pre-order music. If I can’t get it right away, what’s the point? I’ll just go to Best Buy. Anyway, my friend Mike ripped his copy for me so I could bring it along. I asked him what he thought and he simply said “Dark. Very Dark”. Having listened to it now, I think that’s a pretty good description. Very dark. More like The Tain than, say, Castaways and Cutouts. Colin and Co. had moved in this direction a bit for their last album, The Crane Wife, and seem to have continued in the same vein but even more. I’ll need to listen to it a few more times before I have anything intellegent to say about the songs themselves.
NOTE: I wrote this post this morning at the airport but didn’t have time to get it posted.
This morning, I’m at sitting at the Rochester Airport waiting for my flight to Washington DC for the annual Computers in Libraries conference. I go to this every year and always find it a great time. The conference is always great with informative and thought-provoking sessions, lots of vendor exhibits, and chances for networking with other technology library folk. I love Washington DC, with all its history and politics, and always find it a great place to recharge my emotional batteries. That’s good because, speaking frankly, those batteries are running a little low these days.
But enough of that. My flight to DC arrives around 3:30 local time and I’m hoping to get in a little sight-seeing before settling down in the hotel. Once I get checked in and my gear is stowed, I’m going to hop on the Metro and head to the National Mall. There, I’ll take a long walk to the Lincoln Memorial and maybe to the White House if my feet are still up for it. Alternatively, there’s an exhibit on Abraham Lincoln at the National Museum of American History that is open until 7:30 PM. I might decide to skip some of the long walk and check that out instead. Once the conference starts tomorrow, time for museums and such will be limited.
Keep on eye on the blog. I’ll be posting here over the next few days. My posts on the conference itself, including sessions, will be mostly over at SELCO Librarian.
Sam Rayburn was thinking of people like Rush Limbaugh when he said:
Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.
Rush Limbaugh has a financial interest in anger and discord. It’s what he thrives on. Serious discussion and sincere efforts to solve problems don’t drive listeners to his radio show. He’s just part of the background noise that makes it harder to get anything done.
This weekend (yesterday, to be precise), we moved the old high chair to the garage and set up the booster seat for Kaylee. She is really enjoying sitting at the table like everyone else.
I really hate it that delicious logs me out every two weeks. I use it almost exclusively via the Firefox addon and having to log in to tag a page every so often is a real pain. It may sound trivial but it’s the little things that make you crazy.
I’m not sure when this happened but it hasn’t always worked this way. I read somewhere on a blog that this was implemented when Yahoo bought the company. I don’t know but that does have the ring of truth.
Note to whoever is in charge of delicious: The goal is to make the software less irritating to use.
After months of saying “No” to everything ranging from “Do you want to take a bath?” to “Do you want some ice cream?”, Kaylee finally answered “Yes” to a question today. Mark it down in the baby book.
One night a few weeks ago, Rayna and I were going through our bedtime ritual. We were sitting in a rocking chair in her room, enjoying a few minutes of quiet time, when she suddenly said “Hi bunny rabbit!” She was pointing at her closet door where I saw a shadow cast by one of her toys in front of the night light. It was shaped (you guessed it) vaguely like a bunny rabbit.
Every night since then, Rayna looks for the bunny rabbit. Some nights he’s there, usually because Nicole or I make sure things are arranged just right. Some nights, he’s not there. We explain that he went to a party or is at work. She’s always so happy on the nights when the bunny rabbit is there to wish her a good night.
I just wanted to record this so that I can look back on this blog post some day and chuckle over the memory.
President Obama has issued executive orders closing Guantanamo Bay, ending the CIA’s secret prisons, and requiring all US agencies conduct prisoner interregations according to the US Army’s regulations (i.e. no torture allowed).
