I'm Home!

Almost everyone returning home from ALA's Annual Conference has had horror stories about the trip. Mine wasn't as bad as some - at least I reached my destination less than 24 hours after I left. However, Mother Nature has a lot to atone for!

When I got to Southwest's gate at Baltimore-Washington Internatinal Airport (also known as Thurgood Marshall Airport), I learned that there might be delays or cancellation of my flight because of weather. We took off a bit behind schedule, made our planned landing in Columbus, OH, and then headed to Las Vegas, where I was to board a plane for Burbank.

I checked the "flight information screen" and learned that the estimated time of departure was 11:45, not the 8:15 previously scheduled. To make a long story short, the aircraft scheduled for this flight was still on the ground in Pennsylvania (I heard both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia as the location). Another Southwest flight to Oakland was delayed for the same reason.

The airline somehow found aircraft to fly to Vegas for the the two flights at our gate. Oakland's plane took off around 10:30, and ours arrived shortly after. We took off about 11, and reached Burbank around midnight. (My fear was that because of noise restrictions we wouldn't be able to get into Burbank.)

Bob Hope Airport (i.e., Burbank) was d-e-a-d. Of course, nothing was open. When I finally reached baggage claimed (and I probably should have asked for a wheelchair; I was huffing and puffing by that time), I couldn't find my suitcase. Fortunately, there was a Southwest employee there, who retrieved my bag (which was sitting on the other side of the carousel). Then the fun really began.

I went to the island where shuttle service vans usually park. Nothing. I tried calling SuperShuttle on my cell phone, but it was so noisy outside (some kind of construction which called for using jackhammers at midnight) that I wound up shlepping my bags back to baggage claim and calling SuperShuttle from there. In a further piece of luck, I had my confirmation note with me. They sent a van for me, which arrived about 12:30.

I made my next mistake by telling the driver how to get me home. I got us lost. (I had thought traveling on the Golden State Freeway would have been easier. I should have suggested he go on the Hollywood Freeway which had the advantage of having an offramp at my street.

Anyway, I staggered into my apartment around 1:30. I got about four hours' sleep Thursday morning, and snoozed off and on during the day - to the extent that I missed a grocery delivery.

I'm a tad more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today. My grocery delivery has been rescheduled.

Saturday

I spent about four hours yesterday at the National Zoo. I enjoy visiting zoos, especially when the animals zoos exhibit are different from the Los Angeles Zoo.

The National Zoo is on Connecticut Avenue. There's a Metro stop a couple of blocks away - an uphill couple of blocks! By the time I got to the zoo entrance, I was exhausted and sweaty.

My first stop was the visitors' center, where I bought a map. I got directions to some of the animals I particularly wanted to see, but first I had to buy a hat. I didn't remember that it gets hot in the DC area, and it would behoove me to have a head-covering. Here I learned that my membership card in the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association would get me a 10 percent discount in the National Zoo's shops. There's no admission charge for the zoo, which is actually part of the Smithsonian Institution.

One thing I like about zoos is that there can be isolated areas where one is not competing with a million kids to look at animals. Various recreation facilities and day camps brought their charges to the zoo. Since all kids in each organization wore different-colored t-shirts, it was easy to keep track of who was where.

I had hoped to see the elephant behavior training demonstration up close, but I couldn't figure out how to get down to the elephant exhibit. A lot of people watched from a walkway above the exhibit. The keeper demonstrated how the elephants have been trained to present their feet for inspection (elephants actually walk on their toes, so keeping their feet healthy is an important part of zoo care), open their mouths, and perform other behavior that is part of a daily care regimen.

Of course, the giant pandas were the real attraction. There are three bears at the zoo. Since pandas are not social animals, they are kept apart. There's a male, a female, and their cub. One of them was practicing the number one job on the Panda Job Description: Sleeping. Another was in an enclosure and engaging in the number two job on the Panda Job Description: Looking cute.

I cruised by the Great Cats - lions and tigers. I didn't see the zoo's tiger cubs, although I could have asked someone. Other animals I saw included beavers (an animal we don't usually hear about in Southern California), golden lion tamarins (we were urged to hide food and drink, as the monkeys were free-ranging in a forest-like setting and could conceivably reach out and snatch someone's food!), sloth bears, and orangutans. I took pictures, and hope they come out.

By the time I staggered back to the hotel (I could barely walk; my back had seized up on me), I missed a meeting, and decided not to go out to dinner. My roommate, Patricia, and I decided to eat in the hotel. BIG mistake. For reasons known only to the kitchen it took more than an hour for us to get our food. Patricia headlined the problem to the restaurant manager, and we didn't have to pay for our dinner.

Today we started meetings. I was 45 minutes late for a meeting, since in the noteb00k-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe I carefully put down the wrong time :( After the meeting I stated my first trek through the exhibits. I am going to ask my doctor what can be done about my back. I don't know if I have a muscle problem, a disc, or a nerve, but when I can barely walk something must be done. I picked up a number of goodies: stuffed animals, a pillbox, and assorted other swag.

The Public Library Association's officers had a great idea: Hold all committee meetings at the same time and in the same room. There are a couple of problems with this: these meetings conflict with others, namely Council, and it's impossible to serve on more than one committee at a time. The Intellectual Freedom Committee, of which I am a member, decided that the all-committee meeting didn't work for us, and we arranged for a time outside all-committee. That was this afternoon. We discussed possible programming and heard a report from the chair, who attended the Freedom to Read Foundation, about issues pending there. Council will get a report from the FTRF president at the information session tomorrow.

Patricia and I went to a restaurant this evening which was veddy, veddy posh. When we finished our bread, the server whisked away our bread plates, and kept replacing silverware. We both had beef tenderloin, which came in a stack: onion rings, steak, and mashed potatoes, with delicious fresh asparagus and a fennel slaw. I went bonkers over dessert: Chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks and mint. Mmmm.

I had to get a prescription refilled, and took Washington's Metro to the drug store. I staggered home (back still bothering me), and so to bed.

Washington, DC

I have been up since oh-dark-thirty California time, and even thought it's after 11 p.m. EDT, I couldn't be more wide awake.

My plane left Beautiful Downtown Burbank at 8 a.m., more or less. What this meant was that SuperShuttle would pick me up between 5:30 and 5:45 a.m. I arose at 4:30, and was somewhat antsy after eating breakfast, feeding the cats, and trying to remember what I had forgotten.

About 5:25, I went downstairs to await the shuttle van. It arrived about 6 a.m., and the driver took us by way of Robin Hood's barn to pick up a fourth passenger. Said passenger was not ready and waiting, so after she appeared, we finally got to the airport around 6:30.

The first leg of the flight, Burbank to Phoenix, went fairly smoothly. However: when I got on the plane, I realized I had forgotten my business cards! Job #1 tomorrow: Find a Kinko's and print some.

I had an hour to wait for the plane from Phoenix to Baltimore. The Southwest employee who was charged with checking passengers in had taken someone in a wheelchair down the jetway. A few minutes later, he announced that there were mechanical problems. When it became 30 minutes from the time of our scheduled departure, Southwest found another plane. Passengers who were flying through from Orange County had to get off the first plane, and were given priority boarding.

I arrived at the Baltimore airport, got my bag, and arranged for SuperShuttle to take me to and from the airport. The van left about ten minutes after that, and I was at my hotel by around 8 p.m.

The hotel rolls up its sidewalks pretty early. I wound up going to the bar and purchasing an appetizer which I brought back to my room.

So endeth Day One.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye :(

My good friend and fellow ALA Councilor-at-Large Michael McGrorty is hanging up his Library Dust blog and scampering off into the night. For some reason he can't get a library job. Someone's missing a shot at an iconoclast who would be an asset to any library lucky enough to employ him.

Visit his weblog Library Dust while the site is still open. He has written cogent essays on libraries and librarianship, thrift store gleanings, his garden, and more.

Musings from the Mountaintop

Some thoughts on various things:

• LA has been experiencing its usual summer weather - "Late night and mornings partly cloudy, clearing away to sunshine later in the day." The past couple of days the mornings have been crisp, and the sun's actually out!
• My ALA conference badge has arrived! It's posted on the fridge, along with my e-ticket. I'm flying Southwest, which (a) is much cheaper than the other airlines I looked at; (b) leaves from Beautiful Downtown Burbank, rather than from LAX; but (c) isn't a straight shot. I've forgotten whether I change planes in Phoenix going and Vegas returning, or if it's the other way around. The tasks yet to be completed:
• Connect with the cat-sitter
• Pack (my cleaning lady - who does my laundry - will work for me on Wednesday, rather than Thursday, which is the day I leave)
• Make SuperShuttle reservations

• The library has finally purchased an integrated library system, and we've begun the process of cleaning up our current catalog database. Polaris - the vendor - and our powers-that-be say we should be ready to go live in August.
  
• The Dodgers may have started their June swoon. We've lost two of the three games we've played on this road trip to San Diego. This weekend the guys will not only get home cooking, but they'll play the Toronto Blue Jays. (If I ever become dictator - or commissioner of baseball - my first acts would be to eliminate the designated hitter and interleague play.)
• After more than a year and a half, I've found the most efficient bus routes to get me to work and back. It involves taking three buses - the 201, which takes me from Silverlake and Berkeley to Third and Vermont; the 754, from Third to Martin Luther King and Vermont; and the 740 from MLK and Vermont to Manchester and LaBrea, about a block from the library. Going home, I reverse the pattern, although I'll sometimes get a 711 to Florence and Vermont. The trip takes me about 90 minutes, including waiting for transfers. I have a tight change at Third and Vermont, and if the 754 is at all pushing 7:10 (the time the 201 is supposed to leave Sixth and Vermont), I look for a blind man and his seeing-eye dog. If they aren't there, and it's around 7:15, I take the 754 to Santa Monica and hope for a 304 (limited).