sylvar: (Default)
Yes, that's right, I said Athens.  And I'm driving there for code4lib 2007.

Jodi's joining me for the trip, though she won't be registered for the conference.  Which is a shame, because I think she might dig Fun with ZeroConfMetaOpenSearch or Library Data APIs Abound!.

If any of my readers have hints about fabulous vegetarian food in Athens, Georgia, please speak up.  We'll have some sort of Internet access here (code4lib would brook no less).
sylvar: (Default)


I've posted 37 photos (in a row) from our visit to Duke Gardens. I hadn't uploaded them until tonight because conference photos ate up most of my capacity for October, but tonight I felt confident that I wouldn't have any reason to upload dozens of photos until November.

Click the photo to see the entire set.

sylvar: (Star Trek: TNG: Rocking Out In Car)
(crossposted from email)

Jodi's faculty mentor suggested some other schools for us to see, and by dumb luck, they all fit into the same time slot we'd already planned for.

We're going to be staying with friends and CouchSurfing hosts as often as possible. If you have any suggestions about people who could let us sleep in their spare room, living room, garage, or even driveway, PLEASE tell me (reply to this post; if you want to reach me by email, vaxer@hotmail.com is best, as I can see that account from my phone).

Our itinerary:

Sat Sep 23: Chattanooga TN (we have a place to stay)
Sun Sep 24: Aurora IL (we'd planned to arrive the following day and have asked if we can arrive a day early)
Mon Sep 25: Madison WI (we don't have a place to stay)
Tue Sep 26: Kalamazoo MI (we'd planned to arrive the following day and have asked if we can arrive a day early)
Wed Sep 27: Ann Arbor MI (LarryK, can we stay with you?)
Thu Sep 28: Columbus OH (we don't have a place to stay)
Fri Sep 29 through Sat Oct 7: Pittsburgh PA (we have a place to stay, and I'll be in Salt Lake City for part of that)
Sun Oct 8: College Park, MD (we don't have a place to stay)
Mon Oct 9 and Tue Oct 10: Raleigh-Durham, NC (Jeff and Jenn, can we stay with you?)
Wed Oct 11 and Thu Oct 12: Atlanta, GA (Atlanta vaxers, can any of you put us up for two nights?)
Fri Oct 13: we finally come home.

There's more detail involved; we will visit, but not sleep in, East Lansing (Michigan State University) and Bowling Green, Ohio (BGSU).

Let me hear from you all! Any suggestions are great. Restaurants, areas of town to see, places where we can safely sleep, anything we should know, just reply to this post.

Thanks!
Ben
sylvar: (Default)
  • Free dinner at Trang Viet Cuisine.

  • Watched a Babylon 5 episode ("Sic Transit Vir") with Jodi, who rarely has any interest in it, but put up with it for my birthday -- and Amanda, who is watching the whole series with me (we're on S5E02 next, which I think has the Declaration of Principles).

  • Will watch an episode of Buffy (S2E01, whatever that turns out to be) soon.


  • A bit of drama, but that's how LJ is sometimes. I might should have put my birthday stuff into a different post. Ah well. I know y'all wish only the best for us, and I love you for it.

    For the record, Jodi is quite capable of handling graduate work; she's taken many graduate seminars and been graded as a graduate student (and earned good grades even by grad-student standards), and the organizer of the PIKSI all-expenses-paid trip told her that her references are glowing. And we do regularly discuss the job prospects available in this area that don't involve four hours a day waiting for hourly bus routes to connect. But she's gung-ho on GRE prep, to which the thousands of filed index cards for vocabulary study will attest. And that's going to not only get her into graduate school, but get her fully funded somewhere. She's not as dumb as I look. ;)

    I didn't like the idea of selling the camera. At first, I downright hated the idea. But it gradually dawned on me that it was the single most powerful thing I can do to move in the right direction, and now I think it's a darned good idea. A bit humbling, but wise. When I have enough free time, I'll write some more crossword puzzles or sell some articles, and I'll use the proceeds to get a decent digital with some sort of optical zoom. I really don't need pro-am gear, I just 'shiny' it.

    The road trip is still on; Dad's paying for gasoline and we're gonna use CouchSurfing.com to find places to sleep. (If you know someone in Nashville, St. Louis, DeKalb, Milwaukee, Kalamazoo, Oxford OH, Cleveland, Kent OH, Boston, Blacksburg VA, or Atlanta who would like some polite houseguests who plan to bring a gift like some key lime juice or other Floridiana, let me know!) So it's basically just food for an expense, and we were planning to eat some of that anyway. (Though not necessarily the likes of R. Thomas, Giordano's, or equivalent legendary foodstuffs of the cities we're visiting. For that matter, if you know a must-eat food along the way, speak up! We're already planning to have some frozen custard, too.)

    And by the way, we DO have air conditioning in the car; it was my dad's graduation present to Jodi and his birthday present to me, and a very generous present at that. So it's all good.

    We should really have some sort of get-together so people can hear more about our lives than I have time to post. Who's interested?
    sylvar: (Default)
    We had a nice (though long) drive up through Alabama, have been spending every waking moment hanging out with friends, and will be leaving early tomorrow morning to come home. More details later, of course.

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