Day 2: Vegas morning

I am soooo glad I don't live here, as I'd be a helpless gambling addict.  I think that's where all the homeless people come from - arriving in Las Vegas with hopes and dreams of hitting it "big" and succumbing to the vicissitudes of Lady Luck and her capricious nature.  Okay, that's probably wrong, but I can definitely see myself as a young woman getting into some terrible, terrible trouble in Sin City.

So I woke up early, went to McDonald's (after the lousy in-house coffee and danish yesterday, I went straight to the old go-to for cheap, fresh breakfast), and then sat down at a couple of slot machines and ended up 3-dollars ahead!  Woo-hoo!  I'm like my dad, who was game but not a gambler.

Off to Hash House A Go Go to meet up with Facebook (hope-to-be-real) friends and then hopefully make the last hour of the Annual Unconference, which starts at 9am.  Crap!  Just realized that there are THREE Hash Houses in Vegas, and I don't recall which one we were supposed to meet!  Dang!  Okay, deep breath...

Okay.  Okay.  Anyway, just a reminder that I will be live-streaming coverage of two events today, the first session of CraftCon in the Uncommons (2:30pm), and the opening of the Exhibit Floor (5:30pm) - hope you can join me - I'll be filming on my phone so won't have a chance to check chat but I hope peoples who can't make it to either event will take a look and meet some of the great people I've met so far at the Annual ALA Conference for 2014.

Postscript:  Found out which Hash House, duh.

Broadcast schedule on Ustream, so far

So here are two events I'll be live-streaming from Las Vegas on the Ustream channel, ALA 2014 Las Vegas, Baby! Both of them are on Friday, and I'm hoping to add to these soon, so keep checking back!  If I remember correctly, you can sign up for email alerts when the channel is live.

Uncommons: CraftCon Friday June 27th at 2:30pm

I'll be bugging people at the Uncommons area throughout the conference, but this will be covering the CraftCon event that starts on Friday

#alaac14 Opening of Exhibit Floor Friday June 27 at 5:15pm
This is where I get really excited and jump around, talking to exhibitors and gathering the best swag when it opens on Friday afternoon.

Two Days to GO!!!

I can't believe it's almost time to go to ALA!  What a trip it's been to work on this blog, get funding to go the conference, and now work as a stringer for American Libraries!  Feeling very lucky and very grateful to all the folks who helped make it happen.  Hope to see many of you in Las Vegas, but if you can't make it please subscribe to the UStream feed and keep up-to-date with activities from the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center. I'll also be blogging here, tweeting, and facebooking.

I think ALA.org is also doing some broadcasting, but they've been a little opaque about where and when they are doing this.  When I can't go to conferences I still love watching live-feeds or reading live-blogs about them, and hope those of you who keep up with Zen and Loaning will get as much enjoyment out of viewing it as much as I will in producing it for you.

One month to go! #alaac14

Okay, let's try this again - I just deleted the first post, so now I have to rewrite the whole darn thing - how do I manage to do these things?  It is a mystery.  The Google Hangout last night went well, if not a little disorganized on my part, and I definitely learned what NOT to do with hangouts, like try to pause the broadcast, which essentially ended the scheduled one I had been advertising for about a week.  So I had to create another hangout on the fly, got the time wrong, and started later than intended.  I'm sure I lost a lot of potential views because of that, but all I can do is try again with another hangout.  I think what I will do is synthesize the information that folks generously gave during this last one and then present the information at the next one.  Or I'll just post it on the blog.

Hey, and a big shout-out to those who attended and generously supplied their time and expertise to the topic of attending a huge conference like #alaac14.   I am truly appreciative of the people involved in building community online and in person, and it encourages me to keep on keeping on.

Will have to post on some of the activities outside of the scheduled events.

ALA Mobile Scheduler is the bomb

You'll remember when I discovered the ALA Scheduler for Annual and immediately over-booked myself 5 times over.  Well, I was able to figure out how to add the ALA scheduler to my phone, and now I can access all the events and keeps track of all the events I'm attending.  You will see that it is fairly complete with a button to access all the sessions or just the items you signed up for. It has information about the Uncommons, which I'm looking forward to visiting (meaning I will bother the people at the Uncommons desk) and possibly using their equipment to live stream on the exhibit floor.  This is a recommended app if you like using your phone for scheduling, which I do.  Everything is very well organized but the real test will be when I'm juggling between the scheduler, Voice Memo, Notes, Facebook, and Ustream.

Google Hangout May 26th from 9-10pm EST

I decided to do an online Google Hangout this coming Monday to get together with folks who are old and new to ALA conferences (or any conferences) to come hangout and talk about strategies for navigating such a huge event.  I've never done one of these Google Hangouts online so it'll be interesting.  Come join me!

Apply with confidence

Although confidence wasn't the word I was searching for earlier.  I've been practicing putting on eye makeup so I can look like a newscaster during my interviews and live feeds on ustream.  The liquid eyeliner is the hardest part, because you have to apply it in a single, even stroke.  It made me think of how Zen is like applying liquid eyeliner.  You just do it.  Zen is being in the present moment without fear or anger.  Just do it!  So you apply the liquid eyeliner without thinking good or bad, it is what it is.

And the best teaching on this I have ever received came from the woman who worked at the l'ancome counter at Dillard's - she was the person who finally showed me how to put on makeup in colors that suit me, but the big teaching was when she was telling me that the eyeliner had to be applied in one steady stroke.  "And," she continued, "if you mess up you can always do it over again."  No anger or frustration.  Just do it, and if you mess up, do it again.

So much for sleeping

Good thing I'm going to Vegas, a place like my home town in that it never sleeps!

Maybe I'm still totally stoked from finding out that I will be a stringer blogger for American Libraries for their coverage of ALA 2014 in the happiest place on earth - no, wait, that's Disney World.  Anyway, I can get to sleep to save my life tonight so I'm blogging today about what I just spent the last hour researching, mass transit in Las Vegas. 

http://www.rtcsnv.com/transit/fare-information/

I CANNOT believe they are charging peeps 65 dollars for a thirty day pass to the las Vegas transit system - who rides the bus for thirty days straight?!  Oh wait, that would be people with normal, everyday jobs in Las Vegas.  Still better than a car, cost-wise, but ends up costing me 4.05 each way between the convention center and the zen center!  A super friend offered to let me stay with her, but I really want to stay at the zen center.  Who needs in-room cable when you've got the Las Vegas strip?!  And the zen center looks like it has a pool , but that could just be ornamental - I'll have to see!

Plus, as always, cycling seems to be the middle path, here, as far as time spent in transit.  The longest, of course, being the bus.