ALA 2008

I spent the past 5 days at the Anaheim convention center for the American Library Association conference. When I first walked in, I was sad to see everyone had their correct number of ears. But, by the end, loaded down by free stuff, I stopped missing the cosplayers.


My flickr set is here

Among other things I came home with:

16 bags (10 cloth-like, 1 oilcloth-like, 5 vellum or paper gift bag like)
23+ full books (8 advance readers, 13 regular, 2 blank paged-- i paid for 3 of the books)
various sampler books and cds
2 regular cds
6 different post-it notes (multiples of a few)
tomato seeds
2 pencils
7 pens (i totally m2issed the ball on the free pens. somehow, early in the convention I decided I didn't need any pens. I just don't know why)
8 buttons
library temporary tattoos
calendar
mousepad
stress tv
air freshener (from a book on tape company--it says "commute stinks"
business card holder
sunblock
choose your own adventure fortune cookie
flying, screaming monkey toy
2 packages of mints
so much free candy

I'd also like to thank ProQuest for all of their delicious free espresso drinks
And I'd like to boo TLC for never having a freshly baked Otis Spunkmeyer cookie when I walked by.

One of the days we had dinner with my old supervisor and friends. Ryan ordered the 5 pound burrito, it was more like a 10 pound burrito. Needless to say he did not win the t-shirt for eating it all. However, it made a tasty breakfast for us the next 2 days. (picture may or may not be forthcoming)

One major highlight of the weekend is pictured above.

The other was the book cart drill team. I'm hoping better videos will be posted later.

But for now, you can see part of the winner's video
although it's the beginning part before it gets really good and turns into thriller

Also, the entry from texas has some good hats

And, I met this monkey