My ex-professor and information architecture guru Peter Morville is in town promoting his new O’Reilly book, Ambient Findability, which I’m going to buy and review, 
whether you like it or not. For all you digital librarians out there, he had a slide showing some attractive ladies that was meant to illustrate how metadata is sexy these days. Not exactly librarian strippers, but better than nothing.
I also caught the end of the web comics panel, which was so popular I ended up enjoying it from the floor in the back. Bill Barnes from Unshelved was talking about the future of his comic, and how webcomics can become financially self-sustaining. I recommend everyone buy his books RIGHT NOW. Bill also showed up at one of the parties in his library FBI jacket, wowing the geeks.
I met one of my favorite writers, Heather Armstrong from Dooce.com at a local coffeehouse along with fifty of my fellow slathering idiots. Heather was, of course, funny, kind and gracious. I was, of course, a big dork. Meeting your favorite blogger is an inherently awkward social situation. But not as awkward as last year when Chris’ mom asked us why we haven’t gotten married yet. In front of three of my coworkers. Several times. Really loud.
Seriously though, I have an enormous gratitude for Heather and for the story she tells. There are so many women in my generation who are trying to create a unique existence separate from the ones we were raised with. I’ve got a small family and I’ve always felt that I haven’t had many examples of women doing what I want to do, living a modern life, living a creative life, becoming mothers without losing themselves in the enormity of the endeavor. Heather, along with several of my friends and other women who write about their lives, have allowed me to consider possibilities that I wouldn’t have had enough information or inspiration to consider before.
Last night I wisely avoided the nuclear tacos, and went to Trudy’s for Tex Mex instead, along with my savior Jenny Benevento. The Google party we went to afterward had hired a terrible dj who was spinning hits from what sounded like an MTV Party to Go cd. Everyone scuttled next door to the Adaptive Path party once the free drinks ran out. Geeks are fickle.
Hi Bill,
No worries, I’m glad I got to see you at all amid that chaos. I can’t believe how huge sxsw has gotten! I’m also glad you survived those tacos. I tried them last year and they were served with a heaping spoonful of REGRET.
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Angela, thanks for the story and the compliment. I guess that book just isn’t very findable yet…
On a previous mention I thought Ambient Findability looked interesting so I tried to borrow it from my local library. The request went up the chanin from County to Consortium to Regional ILL schemes. At last resort they asked the British Library. I am now the proud owner of a BL Inter Library Loan rejection letter. The BL considers this book “outside the scope of its interest”. The UK national deposit library that holds the collection of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals considers it “outside the scope of interest”!! Mr Morville or his publishers ought to have a word in their burning shell-like and they should be thoroughly ashamed. Meanwhile I feel you are having a very nice time on your readers’ behalf and I for one enjoy your updates of exciting events like SxSW.
Sorry I missed you for dinner on Monday. I did opt for the Nuclear Tacos, and they were worthy of their name. I then retired to my hotel room and vegged, which is what I usually need to do after being super-panelist-guy.