Ballad in Plain E

Went to two more sessions after the Synergy session this morning. The first one was not great. The guy was good and knew what he was talking about, but it was just not my cup of tea (the slides had Comic Sans on them, which is never a good sign).

After that, I went to a great session called Google Presents: Tales, Tips & Tricks for Librarians. I’ve just posted a summary over on the conference blog, so you can read it there if you like.

After that session I had some time to myself, so I took the MallRide down to the State Capitol building. I forgot to bring my own camera (which actually uses film, if you can believe it) and also to borrow a digital one, so there I was, taking pictures on a $3.99 Walgreen’s disposa-special, feeling like I was in 1996. Ah well. I also checked out the relatively new Denver Public Library (gorgeous!) and the City & County building (impressive, like the Capitol). I had heard that there is such a cheesy souvenir as “Denver Mints” (Denver has one of only two US Mints that allow public tours), so I went to the Mint to see if they had a gift shop. They do, but it was surrounded in spikey iron fencing and looked closed, so since I didn’t want to get any scary feds coming after me, I decided to make my way back to my new favourite hangout: Denver Pavilions.

This is a mall-ish complex on the 16^th Street Pedestrian Mall, and is home to a Coyote Ugly saloon (not the reason it’s my favourite, but still!), Bath & Bodyworks (normally not on my radar, but their huge annual sale just started), Forever 21 (is it wrong to love clothes that are meant for 14-year-olds so much?), LA Express, and other fine American chain stores. Ahhhh….

I continued on my way to return a hastily-made Ross purchase (did you know that Ross and TJ Maxx are exactly like Winners…only cheaper?!). Then I headed back to my hotel to meet up with Kels to go to the Canadian Reception. When we got there, we were presented with mysterious little boxes that contained leather-encased USB thumb drives! Best swag ever!

I had a glass or two of bubbly, and we were joined by Kels’s Vancouver counterpart and met a Library of Parliament librarian. We talked shop for a bit and then about the exorbitant price of real estate in Vancouver. Then I was off to ESPN Zone to meet up with another Ottawa librarian who had organized a Senators cheering contingent for Game 4 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. We talked shop for a bit and then about how Crocs should never be worn outside the home or maybe, if you live in the country, your property. Strangely, the bar was full of Colorado Crush cheerleaders. (Also: ESPN Zone has about six thousand TVs all throughout the bar. Our table had its own TV with speakers built into the booth. And, get this: there are even TVs on the ceiling in the bathroom, so you won’t miss a thing!) On on the way out, we discussed–you guessed it–the exorbitant price of real estate in Vancouver. I love Canadians.

Overall an excellent day. More tomorrow.

Technorati tag: sla2007

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Conference Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.