I felt it was a squeeze to get to LITA Forum this year–both financially (I would have to foot my own way entirely) and in terms of time (in the middle of my last few days at MPOW, and between two conferences).
Of course, having made that decision and pretty well cast it in stone–at this point, if I changed my mind, the airfare alone would be over $600–I am pouting because I want to go. The program line-up looks wonderful, and I could use some time sitting in semi-dark conference rooms passing notes back and forth with the fun folk I see at Forum and just a couple other venues. Then there are those endless jaw sessions and the dinners and the hallway hello-I’m-busy-but-let’s-emails that turn into good connections. I hope the sessions get blogged, but durn it, it’s not the same as being there.
Obviously, the answer is that I should calendar LITA Forum 2007 now, while I have the chance (and buy my tickets for Midwinter as soon as possible). Meanwhile, I’ll stop pouting that I only got to go to South Africa this fall and get tours of Soweto and Alexandra, and that next week, after my job ends, I have to go to Michigan to give a talk on Top Tech Trends, see some of my very favorite people, and get library tours of a caliber that always has me coming back to say, man, I’d love to see more libraries do X and Y and even a little Z.
Back to finishing the last quarterly report for MPOW written on my watch. I was very early–a month ago I panicked that I had missed the deadline–but between one thing and another, I’m now on the cusp of being late, so I better hustle.
Those of you awaiting more about South Africa–believe it or not, I’m writing about the World Cup. This is incredible if you know anything about me in real life. I bought a TV with Picture in Picture in order to avoid watching sports. But this is a piece I plan to write tonight and send to a couple of newspapers and sports magazines. A vendor had asked me before I left if South Africa will be ready for hte World Cup in 2010–and my take is that the question is backwards: South Africa is ready for anything. It’s the world that needs to decide if it’s ready for South Africa. Anyway, I’m writing ahead of myself and I have that report to finish.
Posted on this day, other years:
Regarding LITA Forum, I have just one thing to say: Damn! I was hoping to get to meet you. Ah well, next year, I guess.
Ugh. Whose bright idea was it to put the LITA Forum directly following Internet Librarian? It’s the same target audience, and not many people can do back-to-back conferences. 😛
Fiddle dee dee! David, I woulda wanted to pass notes with you. Sheesh. As for Liz, I have such a great memory of last year’s IL–having coffee with you and nibbling on Turkish Delight while we caught up.
Well, I am guessing our paths will cross more than they have–Educause, CNI, et al…
Liz, it’s worse than than. There’s a mere one week separating Access, the main Canadian library IT conference and LITA Forum, and Access is a “can’t miss” for me. So, I’d be doing three conferences in a row!
I am determined to get to Access… one of these years!
Please let us know more about your thoughts on South Africa and the World Cup 2010. I’m a complete soccer nut when it comes to World Cup…
Nathan, will do. (I get so much comment spam that I just found this comment after fishing through a bazillion pieces of ick.) I have tried shopping around the column but it didn’t get picked up. So maybe I’ll just blog it!