hot in cleveland

This weekend, I'm spending four days in Cleveland at Digipalooza 2013.  It's basically a corporate-sponsored event by our eBook provider.   Honestly, an eBook Support conference.  So far?  Awesome.  A painless drive by our lead-foot chauffeur had us cruising in almost ninety minutes early.

A leisurely check-in followed by the discovery of the following things:
1) my room is apparently huge - king-size bed, conference desk, cutest little club chair and ottoman; the bathroom has enough room for all my nonsense to spread out.
2) there's free wi-fi, but only in my room, so yay!
3) I only need four minutes to completely unpack, including getting the soap out of its packaging.

We wandered about downtown Cleveland for a bit, getting our orientation down.  (Their great lake is north of the city).  Had a well-earned lunch at Zocalo, complete with a frozen guava margarita.  Took a two-hour break before registration.  (I wanted to nap, but worked on my Staff Conference session instead).

Tonight, there was a mixer.  I'm not too good at big crowds of strangers.  Thankfully Cooper and TheFields were there to be excellent company.  We found a table strategically placed near the (open) bar and snack table; this worked, because we attracted two fellow white-belts (first-time attendees) and descended quickly into geekery galore.  A fun evening full of fantastic confabulation:
1) The Three Stages of King: "Which Stephen King book is the best?" ... "Real question: is he even worth reading?"
2) Even amazing books are sometimes flawed: "Harry Potter plotholes. They exist."
3) At the movies: "It has Robots.  And monsters. What is there to NOT like?"
4) Mixology: "Gin tastes like pine cones.  No, Christmas trees!"
5) In TV Land: "Is J.J. Abrams done already?  Was he done halfway through Season One of Lost?"

An early evening back in the room.  (American TV has a LOT of randomosity.)

mode not supported

Today, I welcomed a new member to the Chez DissolvedGirl family: Sammy. Sammy's brood have been living under my bed for two weeks, awaiting his arrival and their (hopefully) joyful reunion. When he arrived (in one of the biggest boxes I've ever seen), there was much smiling and crying. Geek Squad were on hand to get everyone hooked up, fill out the right paperwork and basically reunite me with the magical land of TV. Three hours later, here are all my disappointments:

1) Swedish people don't like electronic gadgets in their bookshelves. This is blatant segregationism, but what can I say? I have a lot of Swedish furniture and Japanese gadgets - apparently, never shall the twain meet.

2) The Wall of Terror is not a figment of my imagination - even Geek Squad commented on its ability to make men into boys again.

3) I HATE technology. I pay lots of money for pretty things - I simply want them to work. After Geek Squad left, everything stopped working. The screen kept saying "Mode not Supported" - what the hell does that mean?! After actually breaking down into tears - yes, I cried like a little boy in a sandbox, sue me - I simply left it all alone and went out for a burger. I came back and calmly tackled the problem again. Here I am - almost eleven hours after Sammy first rolled through my door and everything is FINALLY working.... right down to the PS3.

4) A good dongle fixes all. It's true.

5) I work best when no one is watching.

blindfolded

In my quest to have a blog to improve the writing skills, I forgot about one very important thing. Technology. Now, I know what you're thinking: duh. But seriously. I am a creature of habit - switching to Firefox was one of the hardest thing I've ever done - and all this is really quite adventurous. In an effort to make it easier to update the blog, I've wandered into yet more murky waters: del.icio.us. My link list is still pretty pathetic, but I didn't have one at all an hour ago, so I'm amused. And adding the Flixster link was a minor victory as well.