Chicago, ALA, and links!

Wow, I almost went the entire month of July without a post. I'm slipping! I'd better do a couple in a row.

Anyhoo.

I went to Chicago this month. I didn't want to leave. Alas, I had to. I was there for the ALA Annual Conference. It was my first time attending. I think next time I might just get an exhibits pass, because Leah, Andrea, Nita, and I learned that it's totally possible to get into other programs with exhibits only badges. ;) Here's a rundown of my trip.

Wed. July 8th: flew to Chicago by way of the beautiful Charlotte airport (which seriously needs a Bojangles', but that's an entirely different matter). I had enough time to scarf down a mini pizza while running from terminal E to terminal A. (Looking at the map just now I see they do have a Bojangles', but not in either terminal I was in--drat!) After arriving in Chicago I put some more money on the CTA card Jill gave me before I left. I hopped on the train and went to Julia and JP's. Julia met me at the train station and we dropped my stuff off and went to dinner. I had the Hellfire burger. It was delicious.

Thu. July 9th: got up at a reasonably lazy hour. Went over to the convention center to register and get my packet o' stuff for ALA. After that I hopped on the train and went over to Dominican and said hi to Sara, Meredith, and Leslie. That was fun. I also went over to the nature preserve that's right by Dominican and found a geocache. I'd picked up a travel bug and wanted to take it somewhere other than a few miles away in North Carolina. I opted for River Forest. After almost getting attacked by a deer, getting a couple of mosquito bites and eating lunch, I got back on the train and went back to Julia's. Then came the fun: meeting Tracy downtown for a taping of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Yay! Brian, my deputy director, was also going to the show, so the three of us had a deliciously classy dinner beforehand at McDonald's. The show was hi-larious! Peter kept making comments about the 500 librarians watching him. The ones who booed and hissed when he mentioned looking something up on wikipedia.

Fri. July 10th: Libraries Build Communities. Awesome. My group volunteered at Pickerd Elementary School. We re-shelved books and weeded them as we went. We had a lunch break at Subway and then we went outside to weed in the yard. Oddly, as much as I'm not a fan of yard work, it was fun. Maybe it was the satisfaction of knowing that I helped this school. After that was over and we were back downtown, I went over to the Emerging Leaders poster session. I went there for 2 reasons: 1) to see Naphtali and 2) to find out what a poster session was. (Apparently you make a poster on a topic and then you have to stand there for an hour or two and wait for someone to ask you what your research was about.) After socializing for a bit, I went back to Julia's and drank too much wine.

Sat. July 11th: I wasn't able to get up early enough to go see Gregory Maguire speak due to the wine consumption the night before. Oh well. I went downtown and walked into the stacks for the first time. Can you say "overwhelming"? Rows and rows and rows of people selling books and products for libraries (furniture, catalog software, ebook software, stuff to give away for reading clubs, etc.). It was amazing. I made my way over to the Scholastic booth where I discovered I'd have to get up earlier if I was to get a copy of Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. (Spoiler alert: I never got up early enough.) Around noon, I found Naphtali and her friend Maddie, who had already started "mingling" (not lining up!) to meet Neil Gaiman. After waiting in line for slightly over an hour, the three of us got our books signed. Yipee! We walked around for a bit, and then I was tired of walking so I left to meet Julia and JP at a party. The party was fun, but might have been funner (yes, funner) if my feet and legs weren't sore.

Sun. July 12th: Walked around alone for a while before running into lots of DU friends. Met up with my friend Mary Anne outside the coolest booth ever: Wizards of the Coast--it looked like a store in Diagon Alley! We walked around for a bit before heading over to the poster session area of the exhibit floor. My friend Tony was doing a poster session so I stopped to talk to him and meet his awesome girlfriend. Then I had to jet to meet Leah for Junot Diaz, who didn't show up. Supposedly he missed his flight from NYC. We walked back over to Tony, kidnapped his girlfriend and walked around the exhibits again. Later we ran into Nita, and were stopped in an aisle discussing what to do when a guy walked by and created the greatest moment of the entire trip. The guy said to us something like "just stand there in the middle and take up the whole aisle" to which Leah replied something like "don't worry, we've got that taken care of. Have a nice day, asshole!" Eventually we gained Andrea, and she, Leah, Nita, and I hopped on a bus to the LITA President's Program. The Shanachies were there! Woot! Someday, they'll be my coworkers. After their totally awesome program, the four of us went out for dinner and walked over to the red line so I could get back to Julia's, grab my stuff, and "move" to Tracy's. After hanging out for a bit, we went to Leah's librarian get together at the Clark Street Ale House.

Mon. July 13th: I got up early and went to the convention early enough to catch Melba Patillo Beals speaking. She was one of the Little Rock Nine, and keeping that in mind, the most important thing she said was "I have no hate in my heart." After that I, yes, walked around a bit. Ran into Tony and Kate again before heading to My, Those Novels Are Certainly Graphic! It was a program with 4 panelists: 3 comic/graphic novelists and a man from the CBLDF--Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. It was interesting, but not holding my attention. Tony, Kate, and I walked around some more, and then it was time for me to go to the PLA President's Program. However, I didn't stick around because it was also not holding my attention. I went back to Tracy's and we went out to the Giordiano's next door.

Tue. July 14th: Tuesday was nice. I slept late, and walked around Tracy's neighborhood. I also met up with Julia, who is a nanny for a family about 3 blocks away from Tracy's apartment. Julia and I went out for a walk with Henry, the adorable little boy she nannies. (Nanny's?) After Tracy got home from work we went to dinner at Potbelly before she took a little nap. Then it was off to a midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince! Yay! After that it was time to go to bed!

Wed. July 15th: I'm pretty sure that once again I didn't really do much. I think I just laid around Tracy's and watched movies all day. It's a rough life. I walked around a little bit more. We made yummy quesadillas for dinner and finished The Blues Brothers, which we'd started on Sunday.

Thu. July 16th: I left Tracy's apartment and lugged my stuff onto a bus that took me to the train, which took me to the airport. And by "stuff" I mean, my purse, which was stuffed full, my extremely full suitcase (which had the extender zipper unzipped), and a bag of books that weighed probably 30 pounds. The suitcase and bag of books were a bit unwieldy, and awkward to get on and off trains and buses. Initially I had a 4 hour layover in Charlotte, but thanks to my flight out of Chicago leaving 2 hours late, that layover wasn't so bad! It was nice to get back to Fayetteville, but I was sad to leave Chicago.

Total of what I got: 3 posters, 11 tote bags, 26 books (one cost $10, the rest were free), and a bunch of pens, post-its, and ribbons saying things like "RUSA Board of Directors" and "YALSA Rock Star."