The 2008 Charleston Conference is now over and I am happy to be home, and as always, it was great event. I wish I had had the energy to "blog the conference" as it was happening, but I am not that kind of blogger/writer (yet?). I had the ability -- I took my laptop and stayed in a hotel with free WiFi. However, this is not a habit I've developed yet and I did not have the mental focus. I am required by my new employer to provide a written summary report of my experiences at any funded event I attend. I totally support this requirement for a number of reasons.

This is Jantzen Lock & Key Company. It came to me last night.

I found a review entry elsewhere that captures this:

From Kristen F., Austin, TX:
When I first moved to Charleston, I took a lot of walks. Once I was walking and noticed a key embedded in the sidewalk cement. Then another one. Then I realized there were a ton of keys all over the place! I couldn't believe it.

Then I looked up, and realized I was in front of a locksmith. Oh, I guess it isn't that coincidental after all. Still cool, though.

I'm really looking forward to my twentieth year at the Charleston Conference! It's hard to believe I've been coming to this conference for that long. Every year there are things that are so much the same and yet every year is also different.

I miss the social atmosphere of the early years when we used to go dancing - the clubs are long gone, so it's not possible even if I could still stay up that late.

I have now been in the new job for 2 1/2 months. I know all the staff in the Tech Services area by name and face, and I am getting to know lots of other people in the Library too. I'm learning the quirks of the place and the issues. I'm participating in all kinds of things around the Library and the campus. A recent highlight was something they call Eastern N.C.

I am down to less than 500 messages in my Inbox now and am about to zap most of them. I have to clean it all up by the end this month (Tuesday) and since I am out of town Monday-Tuesday tonight's the night.

It has taken me the better part of 5 months to work on this, along with moving (physically) along with learning the new job, moving ACQNET (just done) and so much else.

Maybe this could have been done faster by someone else, but this is the way it is for me.

So a tech buddy at App State sent me a link from the Palm Pilot site and it DOES TOO synch with MS Office 2007 - Success! This was the highlight of my week - So now I have managed to transfer my address book over to the IPhone by way of MS Office 2007. I feel very clever for having been able to figure this out.

So now, on top of the Iphone I just purchased for myself, I now have a (small) travel laptop issued to me from work. Such an embarrassment of riches! But right now I am still more comfortable with my good old desk top at home -- but if I want, I now can compute on the couch in the family room like Joe does.

I have gone from frustratingly dead in the water to almost there - if I can just get the d^&*n home printer to work I'll be happy and that solution has been suggested and I think I can handle it!

The bad news is that Palm Pilot will NOT work with MS 2007 -- period.

I've been in Greenville for 3 weeks and for 2 of those 3 weeks, my home computer has not been working right. $225 later, it is now working.

The first $150 was to the local Intrex store where I took it last weekend. It had a virus (probably) but the situation was complicated by the fact that the anti-virus software (Norton 360) was causing part of the problem. Fortunately the folks at Intrex do not charge by the hour - if they had, I would have paid a lot more. So I am not unhappy about what they did. They got it working again, so that is good.

Here in Greenville

I wish I had more time to blog on all this but our days are filled with getting up early, walking the dogs (which takes some time since there are 3 of them and 2 of us and they are not yet comfortable on the leash – which makes us all look ridiculous). My 1st attempt to do this solo was laughable – fortunately at 6:30 am not too many people were around to see it.

The master bedroom is now completely broken down and we will sleep in the guest room tonight through Thursday. I am working on the back bedroom (i.e computer/office) but it will be the very last to go.