Seattle

I've been here in Seattle for two nights now attending the American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting. Seattle is lovely, even in the winter time. The temperature has hovered in the 40's for the most part and it hasn't rained yet! That's not much different at all from the weather in Corpus Christi this weekend.

I've spent most of my time in meetings and workshops (which I've described in far too much detail on my other blog, Never Stop Learning. Friday night we (Chris, Jen and I) with our sales representative from Thomson Scientific. We ate at Elliot's on Pugent Sound. Sue probably remembers Elliot's because that's where we had dinner the last time I came to Seattle to visit her. The Dungeness crab was delicious!

Last night we went to a party put on by another vendor from with whom we spend a lot of money. It was at the Space Needle so I've now been to the top of the Space Needle! This morning we heard Angela Davis, yes, Black Panther, Angela Davis. She spoke about how American history tends to create "legacies", people who represent a historical event or cultural movement. She used Dr. Martin Luther King as an example and told us the story of how the African American women, who were the people who did the real work organizing of the movement for racial equality, selected Dr. King as their leader (because, of course, at the time, an organization had to have a man leading them). Dr. King was apparently the new preacher in town and was therefore a better choice than any of the other more well, known and established preachers in town (Birmingham, AL) because choosing him would cause the least jealousy and antagonism among the other preachers. She used Rosa Parks as another example of a legacy. She is an excellent speaker (as you can imagine) and the audience of about 350 really wanted her to go on and on.

On the negative side, our hotel room has been without hot water for 24 hours now. Everyone seems to be taking it quite well but if it's not back on by the time I get back from another round of dinner and parties tonight, I'm thinking seriously of heating water on the stove in the kichenette in our room to take a sponge bath in. Ok, sorry, too much information there :-).

Lest you think that all we're doing is going to parties and picking up free books in the exhibit hall (I confess to having done a bit of that), please visit Never Stop Learning. You'll see that I really have been learning quite a bit as well.