Today I am at a conference for work on information technology. Basically, the techie side of the library. I wanted to go so that they can impact their wisdom to my tech newbie self. However, apparently either the information was not well advertised or I missed an important e-mail or two.

It goes like this…I get up at 8:15 to attend the get together breakfast/registration at 8:45-9:30. | go down to the hotel lobby and see a buffet style set up and a few chairs. I grab myself a little something and sit down to eat. However, I am starting to be concerned that there is no visible registration area and there is only one other person in their restaurant area. My concern grows as an employee casually drops a folder with the bill for my breakfast on the table. I explain to her that I am part of the conference and was told that breakfast was included and I show her the agenda that I dutifully printed out before leaving work yesterday to drive here. She goes to check with management and I end up stuck paying the bill. I have to run all the way back up to my room to get the credit card in order to pay because I never carry a purse.

After I finish I am alarmed that no one has yet shown up and the staff seems to have no idea what I’m talking about so I go to talk to the front desk people. I tell them that I’m part of the conference and ask where registration is happening. They stare at me blankly. *blink blink* Now I’m really worried. I ask them to confirm that this is the only Marriott on this particular road and am told yes. They then begin looking stuff up. I find out that there are apparently only 4 people from the group staying here. I ask if they can call one of them and am told no but am given another number. I run back upstairs again to call from my room phone because they don’t want me calling from the desk phone. I find out that the meeting is actually down the street.

I hurry up and rush to the conference center and luckily it hadn’t started yet even though I was 10 minutes late. Whew! I met a lady from Yale’s library and several people from the Chicago area. I even met one person from the Schamburg library. I thought about mentioning that her town was nice but that might result in her asking how I know about it. The only reason I know is because I have attended a furry convention there and I don’t think that would go over very well. Oh well.

We talked about a lot of things and I realized that I have barely scratched the surface of librarianship. They were tossing out acronyms left and right. Some of which I knew but many I didn’t or had only briefly encountered in my library class. I don’t know really how much I am actually learning but I am gathering a huge list of things to investigate.
I’m going out later to a networking dinner at an Indian place so hopefully that will be good.

My honey comes home from his business trip tomorrow. I haven't seen him in over a week with my vacation and his trip. He couldn't go on the trip because of work. Rattling around in this big old house isn't the same without him.

We all got up way too early at 8 am as we were still adjusting to the three hour time difference. WE got ready and had breakfast at an IHOP. It takes quite a while to get our food and by that time some of the younger Coachella goers start filing in. A group is seated next to us and I can’t help but overhear their chatter about goof things (pranks pulled on each other, etc.) Aah to be that young again. We finish and head back to the motel to liberally slather ourselves with sun block. After all, it is the desert people. On the way I notice 2-3 yoga studios and every restaurant has outdoor seating. We are definitely in California. It was a neat change of scenery.

The first band doesn’t start till 1:30 to avoid the noon day desert sun and so I thought our leaving at around 11:30 was way early but the only other thing we could have done was to hang around the motel. We drove and drove and drove. I had no idea that the concert site was 45 minutes away. It’s on a polo field in the next town over from where we were staying AND they have a noise curfew but we’ll get to that later.

We park and see a field of white tents in the distance. I’m excited but the 97 degree heat tempers it a bit. I actually put on a hat and I hate wearing hats. I don’t think I look right in them. We had each bought a bottle of water to take in with us but had to throw it away at the gate as they weren’t letting in any outside water even if it was sealed. :P Instead they had a water program where you buy their souvenir sports bottle for $10 and you get free filtered water fill ups for the weekend. Not a bad deal.

In through the gate you see a huge metal stage with screens on either side to show the performer. I wasn’t expecting something quite so elaborate. We take a look around and see that they have a bunch of art installations. There is a little temple made of found objects, 2 Tesla coils (that I discovered that night arch purple lightening), a 30 ft tall robotic hand that picks up a car and drops it every hour, several things involving flames including a giant metal snake. Thankfully, several of the art pieces were designed to provide shade.

There were five stages with different bands about every 1 hour to an hour and a half. We watched Alberta Cross, We Are Scientists, Connor Oberst, Franz Ferdinand, Morrissey and of course the pièce de résistance, Paul McCartney. I recommend We Are Scientists if you haven’t heard them. Franz Ferdinand was pretty good too. Their show was really energetic. Paul McCartney was awesome! The rest were okay but I didn’t really dig them. I know that its sacrilegious to some of you that I’m not a Morrissey fan. Sorry.

At some point during the day, despite the water and the hat, I started feeling nauseous and dizzy. I think I was on the verge of heat stroke so I sat in one of the open tents they were using as a dining hall and listened to the bands from there. After the sun went down a little and I rested up I felt better and was able to watch most of Franz Ferdinand’s show. Towards the end of the show my sister and I started moving up in the crowd to get a better spot for McCartney who would be on in 2.5 hours or so while my brother went off to see other bands on other stages.

We stood for an hour and then Morrissey came on. We had a great spot about 10 rows back from the stage. However, it started getting crowded. I was shoulder to shoulder with sweaty strangers but I didn’t mind ‘cause I was going to see Paul no matter what. Towards the end of Morrissey’s show, some dude started dancing and weaving his way through the crowd. He started dancing/pushing the girl next to me (not like dancing with her but trying to move her). I thought buddy think again if you think I’m going to move. He tried anyway and then managed to shove the lady in back of me to get around me. He got about 5 people away from me and started crowd surfing. If you know me, then you know I am NOT the mosh pit type. I started to get nervous that it was getting a little wild and that I would get a foot in the face or worse but I was willing to stick it out. Morrissey was finally done and we had 30 minutes to wait for them to set up for McCartney. During that half hour it got crazy. Scores of people started amassing and pushing everyone towards the front. It got so tight that it was hard to move and there was barely an inch between you and the person in front of you. The heat from hundreds of people that close made it hard to breathe and then they started shoving. People were trying to move up from the back to occupy non-existent spaces. They grabbed each other’s arms and pulled and clawed their way through. I got pushed a couple of times and started yelling at them to stop before someone gets hurt as images of a Who concert reenactment ran through my head. In the end I panicked and grabbed my little sister to pull us to safety. I was greatly annoyed at losing my spot but when Paul came on I put that aside and tried to enjoy the moment. It turns out that my brother was able to get a closer spot than we ended up getting even though he came in late. Grrrrr.

The show was awesome underneath the stars. Paul played some of his old stuff and some from his newer albums. I’m not really a fan of the newest stuff. I like his Beatles stuff obviously and his Wings stuff but the last new thing I’ve liked from him is his Flowers in the Dirt album. He played “My Love” and I found myself wishing that halfelf could’ve been there too. He had a fireworks show for “Live and Let Die” like he does for the arena concerts he usually does. I wasn’t expecting that in the middle of the desert. Later he played not one but two encores and I found out recently that the town is trying to punish him by fining him $51, 000 ($1000 for each minute he played past their noise curfew). I say that’s crap.

I had a great time and then we went back to the motel and collapsed.

I was invited to go to Coachella this year by my younger brother and sister. My brother is into indy music and has gone for the past 5 years. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s a three day long music festival with mostly independent bands but they always have a big headliner each day. I hadn’t been on vacation in three years and I was dying to go somewhere. What clinched it for me was that Paul McCartney was going to be one of the headliners. I’ve been a huge Beatle fan since middle school so I jumped at the opportunity.

It all began last Thursday when the three of us trekked up to the local airport. My little sister is a flight attendant so she scored us some cheap tickets to Cali. The only kicker is that they are standby tickets so if the plane is booked you don’t get on. I knew it would be difficult to get three on the plane so we asked my sister to give up her seat to one of us if necessary and have her take another flight. Unfortunately, she had to do just that as there were only two unclaimed seats and not three. However, she made it to the Orange County airport about the same time that we made it to L.A.

We then picked up our rental car. We decided to upgrade to a hybrid, I mean why not it was only $5 and it saves on gas. This is where comedy ensues. The agent asks my brother to get in so she can demonstrate the controls. She tells me that she has to reach over him and asks if I mind. I told “I don’t care, he’s my brother.” She nervously giggles and explains that she has to ask because one time she reached over somebody’s man and they came unglued. She told us that the lady went to her manager etc, etc. Wow, was all I thought. Anyway, the lady leaves and we try to start the car but I guess her story distracted us from fully listening because we push all the buttons (it doesn’t really have a typical “key”) and nothing happens. My brother is being a typical guy and refuses to call the girl back. I try to look it up in the manual but can’t find it. After about 7 or 8 attempts, he lets me get an agent. It turns out we were forgetting to put a foot on the brake and its safety lock won’t let you start it without it.

We then drive the 45 minutes to an hour to the Orange County airport to pick up my sister. Luckily, we got in early so we didn’t have to fight LA rush hour traffic. From there we have to drive another 2- 2 ½ hours to get to Palm Springs where we were staying. I was a little skeptical about this because my brother made the arrangements and booked a Motel 6. I had images of bed bugs, stained sheets and all kinds of nastiness running through my head. However, our room was serviceable if a little run down. There was a little grime between the tiles in the shower but nothing major thankfully.

We had dinner in a Mexican restaurant called Consuela’s. Apparently, we went to a different Consuela’s then we were originally directed to by the hotel employee. As we found out later, there are a BUNCH of Mexican restaurants down there with this name but they are not a chain. Everything they made was authentic and tasty.

Later we found out that they were closing off some of the streets to hold a street carnival. My brother and sister decided to check it out but I was too jet lagged and stayed in to catch up on some zzzzs.

More to follow tomorrow. Tired, must sleep.

I was amused this evening at work.

A new lady started working at my company a few months ago and from day one she has been a pain in my butt. She is demanding, rude and pushy. She immediately began asking for perks that not even every senior employee there has. Since that time she has volunteered for committees and projects but always manages to shift any of the real work to others. To top it all off, she tried to take credit for helping me on a project that she never ended up helping with in front of my boss. Up to this point it seemed that everyone was blind to her shenanigans.

Today I stopped by to chat with another co-worker and see if she needed anything and she went off about the pushy lady doing the same thing to her as she did to me. It felt better to have others to commiserate with as I thought I was the only one she had been trying to pull this crap with. This lady put pushy lady in her place and stood up for me which was awesome. :)

Let's try this again. I'll try to be more social.

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Well we have returned safe and sound from Anthrocon. This was my first furry con so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to find some of the sweetest people and the most talented artists that I have met in a long time. The only jerk I met was in the Eye of Argon reading. There was this drunk guy who thought it was really some kind of serious competion and started shouting and trying to make the other people laugh during their reading. He eventually got bored and left.
I also got to see Rafferty's fame first hand. We tease and often make Raff the butt of our good natured jokes in our gaming group but at the con he was a tiny god. It was really amusing to see people fawning over him. I'm glad he's not another Rodney Dangerfield everywhere.
Another good development was that I got to meet Lionpaw and Chris Lynx. They were really cool people and I enjoyed hanging out with them. I'm looking forward to the next con and a chance to meet the other people that I know on the Muck but have not met in person.