leases and love

Wow. Hm. “I’ve been thinking about leases and love. I wonder how many relationships end because the lease is up? I mean literally. For N and I it came down to, the lease is up at the end of June, do we sign up for another year together? The answer was no. I don’t think … Continue reading “leases and love”

Wow. Hm.

“I’ve been thinking about leases and love. I wonder how many relationships end because the lease is up? I mean literally. For N and I it came down to, the lease is up at the end of June, do we sign up for another year together? The answer was no. I don’t think either of us were one hundred percent certain that we wouldn’t have been able to make another year work, but the chances were slim. And if we were going to lose each other, we didn’t want to lose our security deposit too.” -from A Year In Pictures Following The Break-Up

nasig day one

The opening program was one of the best I’ve seen so far. The local historian, Dr. Tom Noel, gave an entertaining and informative overview of the Denver area and Red Rocks in particular, complete with a slide show of images. Equally entertaining was Jeff Slagell’s presentation of this year’s award winners. The evening at Red … Continue reading “nasig day one”

The opening program was one of the best I’ve seen so far. The local historian, Dr. Tom Noel, gave an entertaining and informative overview of the Denver area and Red Rocks in particular, complete with a slide show of images. Equally entertaining was Jeff Slagell’s presentation of this year’s award winners.

The evening at Red Rocks was dreary, but I took a few photos, anyway. My only complaint there was the lack of sufficient seating, but after a couple of hours, enough people left and I was able to snag a chair.

Friday was a long day that didn’t end until early Saturday morning. I have notes from the sessions I attended, and I plan to flesh them out into a future post. The main take away things I got from the sessions:

  • Don’t fear technology and social networks, but make sure that the intentions brought to them are good.
  • eJournal checkin isn’t checkin per se, but more a systematic and proactive verification of access.
  • SUSHI will rock your socks off, so be on the lookout for implementation.
  • The current publisher/academe/society relationships aren’t sustainable and must change.

For dinner, B took us to an Ethiopian restaurant. The food was very yummy and we were quite satisfied when we left. There was a bit of an incident with the rehab folks on the bus to the restaurant, and the return trip was bland in comparison. In true NASIG fashion, we closed the bar before heading back to our rooms.

arrival

Yesterday was a looong day. After staying up late getting ready to go to NASIG, I was up early and driving to the airport. The flight was nice, and I was very impressed with the plane and amenities. Frontier must be one of few airlines still giving out snacks for “free” on flights. We landed … Continue reading “arrival”

Yesterday was a looong day. After staying up late getting ready to go to NASIG, I was up early and driving to the airport. The flight was nice, and I was very impressed with the plane and amenities. Frontier must be one of few airlines still giving out snacks for “free” on flights. We landed about fifteen minutes early, which was nice, but I still had about an hour wait until J’s plane landed. We waited a little while for B & M’s plane to arrive, but then decided to get our shuttle tickets and go the hotel. Just after we purchased them, C and M arrived, so J and I hung around chatting with them. They were waiting for JG to arrive with coupons for a discount on the shuttle ride. (I somehow missed this option, but it was only $4 off.) B & M got there before JG arrived, so by the time everyone had their shuttle tickets, we pretty much took over a couple of shuttle vans, which was amusing to me.

After getting settled in my hotel room and taking a shower, I met up with E, B, M, and L, and we all went out to a brew pub for dinner. The food was excellent (fried chicken! with gravy! and a biscuit!) and the beer was quite good, with the exception of the beer brewed with herbs instead of hops. It was some old recipe, and if you like beer flavored tea with lots of lemon, you’d probably enjoy it. I didn’t care for it so much. My favorite of the ones I sampled (I tried six of the twelve available) is the Sagebrush Stout. It was very creamy with a nice almost chocolate flavor, and it took a bit longer than usual to get to the slightly bitter hops taste.

The evening ended in the hotel bar, as most evenings end at NASIG. I like this hotel bar best out of all of the hotel bars I’ve been in since NASIG 2003. It’s an open space with lots of sound absorption, so we could all sit in couches and chairs around a large square coffee table and still be able to hear each other. There is another conference in the hotel that is ending today, and after that we’ll pretty much have the bar to ourselves. Yay! The NASIG social evenings are back!

Oh! One more small amusing thing. Keep in mind that when I arrived at the Denver airport, I was functioning on about four hours of sleep, one of which I got on the flight. As I’m beginning to wonder if I missed Jeff’s arrival and I can’t remember which airline he was on or exactly when it was supposed to arrive, I start thinking about heading to the hotel on my own. At which point, I realize I can’t remember the hotel name and I don’t have any documentation on me (for once I didn’t print out my confirmation). I tried calling Emily, but she didn’t answer her phone. Bonnie is still in the air, and the number I have for Jeff isn’t working. So I called Shana, who seemed to be quite amused at my question. “I’m at the airport in Denver, and I can’t remember the name of the hotel where the conference is – Do you know which hotel I’m supposed to be at?”

updates

General update about blog stuff and things happening in my life.

My recently read/reading list is gone for a little while. I tried upgrading the plugin last week, and it broke. The author says he’ll have a fix for it sometime this week. I’m heading out to NASIG on Wednesday, so it will probably be sometime next week before I can get it up and running again, if all goes well.

Speaking of NASIG, the hotel this year has free wifi in public areas and some meeting rooms. The conference organizers have a blog available for attendees to post and comment on. If you aren’t able to attend the conference and you have an interest in all things serials, then do keep tabs on the blog. I’ll be attempting to some live blogging both here and there.

As you may know, I write reviews for a website called Blogcritics.org. I’m trying to catch up on the backlog of review items in my house, which is why that’s about all I’ve been posting lately. Hopefully things will get back to normal once I get caught up. You can keep tabs with what’s pending, if you’re interested. I’m really behind on the books. Arg.

shhhh cowboy

New York style roots rock that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

cover of Some Other PlaceMost Blogcritics readers are familiar with Jon Sobel as a witty and thoughtful music critic, but probably few know that Sobel is also a musician and songwriter. His band, Whisperado, has an EP that should be in every literate music fan’s collection.

Continue reading “shhhh cowboy”

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