New Orleans trip

I thought I would share a little about my trip to New Orleans with everyone. If you didn't read it in the news, the American Library Association hosted the first large conference to be held since the hurricane hit. Approximately 18,000 librarians, publishers and authors attended and New Orleans did a wonderful job of pulling the conference off. Shuttle buses to and from the airport were a problem (but they always are) and many flights were delayed but once we made it to our hotel everything seemed to go very smoothly, at least for my group.

I went in early for a preconference "The Boomers are coming: Is your library ready." This was interesting but wore me out a bit. I did work on a proposal that one of my committee members will be presenting to the Senate about changes in the Older Americans Act currently moving through as a bill. If you are concerned about this issue please go to:

For more information on the Act: http://help.senate.gov/About.html
To locate contact information for your representatives: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
To contact the committee: help_comments@help.senate.gov

Friday night I had a dinner hosted by one of the publishers and got to meet the author of one of my favorite books so far this year. Tim Flannery was delightful, possibly because of the Australian accent. Dinner was wonderful and made me long for the pre-house owner days when I could indulge in elegant evenings out. Afterwards, my friend Jackie and I headed out for my nightly daquiri (a tradition from my birthday trip last year).

Saturday was the day to talk about books. So far no one had a absolute favorite book that got dumped off the final list but I am anticipating one of mine being a hard sell next winter. We even got out a little early. Later on that night I attended the ALA Scholarship bash (concert). When my friend Tricia found out that I was not a huge fan of Mary Chapin Carpenter I got a stern lecture on why her songwriting features the best storytelling of this or any other time and she is the best ever.... I have to admit that she was extremely engaging onstage and her music was pretty good, far better than I remember it being. When it was over, several of us headed over to the Daquiri bar for our nightcaps.



Sunday I had to get up for the 7 am Notable Books author breakfast and three of last years notable book authors spoke. I enjoyed the authors but am not sure who came up with the breakfast concept, especially after a Saturday night in New Orleans. After that I went to a couple of workshops and checked out the exhibits but took it a little easier on myself. In the evening I went to dinner with a bunch of book people so we again stopped so for a daquiri and then went to dinner and talked about books and traveling all evening.

Monday I flew home to be greeted by a kitten that seems to have doubled in size in a week and another cat who is still grumpy about the new addition.

Since it was a work trip there were no wild party nights for me. As a result I didn't get very many pictures. I will try to put up a couple in a day or two but in the meantime if you link to the Flickr site I have some of the pics from my birthday trip to New Orleans a year and a half ago.